Lyman Hall - Sheehan III

My wish has been granted! Lyman Hall and Sheehan boys basketball teams will play for a third time Saturday. I have a great deal of respect for Coach Gaetano and his Sheehan squad. But I’m an east sider with a son on the JV team so I’ll be rooting for the Trojans. I’m predicting Lyman Hall wins this one by five to 10 points. Sheehan has won the first two, including an overtime contest. It will be difficult for Sheehan to beat a very talented and seasoned Lyman Hall team three times in one season.
The game is at East Haven High starting at 3:30 p.m. Best of luck to both sides. Care to offer your own prediction?

Check out my blog Saturday night. I’ll try to get up a post-game blog.

Here are 100 pictures from the game taken by Record-Journal photographer Rob Beecher

Rivalry game? Lacrosse should be a varsity sport.

Two quick sports-related items.

I am soooooooooooo excited about the possibility of the Lyman Hall and Sheehan boys basketball teams playing for a third time in the SCC tournament! I only have to wait about four more hours to find out if Sheehan beats North Haven and earns the right to play Lyman Hall Saturday. The wait is killing me. Rivalries are great.

Also, making lacrosse a varsity sport was discussed again at last night’s Board of Education meeting. I’ve noticed over the past several years that more and more children are becoming involved in the combined club team that the recreation department sponsors. It is not cheap to start a varsity sport, but the board should find some money to at least form a combined Sheehan-Lyman Hall varsity squad. The time has come to put lacrosse on equal footing with baseball, softball and track and field. Let me know what you think.

Teen-agers and texting

“Dad, I can text and talk at the same time,” my oldest son, 15, said as we drove home one night recently. I asked him a question and heard no response. I assumed he was listening to his iPOD, but when I glanced over I noticed his thumbs pressing rapidly on his cell phone keyboard. Michael’s iPOD ear buds never seem to come out, but he is not the most prolific “texter” in the family. Danny, 13, is the undisputed champ. He can play basketball and send text messages. I don’t really care if he dribbles and texts, but find it rude when Michael or Danny text while I’m talking. They are so stealthy, I don’t notice right away and continue with my end of the conversation for several sentences before realizing no one is listening.
It would be rude to make or take a phone call in the midst of a conversation. I argue that texting is the same thing, they disagree. I’m wondering if anyone else is having the same problem and has developed some rules involving texting and family conversations.

Did I share the money?

Elizabeth Barberino is correct. I usually am a “softee” at heart. But for some reason on Tuesday night I did not feel like sharing the $90 I had won earlier in the evening. Returning home, I said hello and tried to steer the conversation away from my winning. When my wife and sons raised the issue, I didn’t offer to share. Finally, Mary held out her hand and said: “Where’s my money ?” Reluctantly I pulled out a $20 and gave it to her, keeping the remaining $70 for myself and asking her what she planned on doing with the $20. She told me to buzz off.

Reading the responses to my previous blog has made me think I didn’t handle the situation well. I am big believer in karma and now I’m thinking that my selfishness will probably prevent me from winning anything again. Worse, I might lose all my blessings. I have about $50 left. I’m going to give $10 each to my sons and use the rest to fill up my gas tank (I burn most of it driving my sons around) and apologize to Mary for making her beg for what I should have offered. The raffle is not rigged. But if I win again I will give half back to the Lyman Hall Courtsiders and use the other half to buy pizza for the newsroom. By the way, the person in this story with plenty of good karma is Lynne Landry. She roams the stands at each home game peddling 50-50 raffle tickets. It’s not an easy job. Thanks to her smile and good nature, ticket sales are up. Lynne and the Courtsider volunteers receive no money for their efforts. The Lyman Hall basketball team is fortunate to have such dedicated parents.

Keep the money or share with my family?

Those attending the Lyman Hall – Jonathon Law boys basketball game Tuesday night may have noticed that I won the 50-50 raffle at halftime. Some of you probably also noticed that after collecting my $90 from Lynne Landry (Matt’s mom) I headed straight for the exit. Let me explain.

I was leaning toward leaving at halftime anyway because I had work to finish back at the R-J. Knowing that my two sons were in the stands watching Lynne hand dad cash and that my wife was working the concession stand and about to hear about my luck cemented my decision to run.

About two weeks ago I won the same 50-50 raffle and asked my wife to collect my winnings from Lynne. She kept the $90, bought dinner for my sons after the game, did something with the rest of it, and gave me about $15.
With the tables turned, I arrived at home Tuesday night with all the money safely in my pocket. In the two hours between leaving the game and arriving home, my wife had called to ask for her cut and both sons had hinted they wanted their share. As I walked into the living room I was leaning toward keeping all the money for myself because of what had happened the last time I supposedly won the raffle.

Do you think I kept the money or shared?

Simpson School saga continues

In Tuesday’s newspaper we had an article on the former Simpson School property in Wallingford. The headline read: “Development work may get going soon.” I hate to be a pessimist, but I doubt it. First I watched the school decay for a decade. For the past year and a half I’ve been driving by an empty lot. When the council sold the property for only $100,000 in March 2007 I doubted the developer could make the condominium proposal work because of all the regulations the council attached.

Instead of putting so many restrictions on developing the property, the Town Council should have turned it over to a real estate agent and sold to the most reasonable highest bidder. The area is a mix of commercial and residential development. If the town had allowed it to be used for a medical building or some other conforming commercial use, they could have sold it for closer to $1 million. Let me know what you think.

Indoor baseball

A lot of parents and children head out to indoor baseball facilities (batting cages) this time of year.
I’ve been a baseball dad for more than 10 years and have done some coaching. My sons, 13 and 15, have had some excellent coaches and instructors. I've learned lots from them. Here are some tips:

1. If your child is 10 or under they should participate in some other indoor sport and should not be focusing exclusively on baseball all winter. Basketball, swimming, indoor soccer, gymnastics, etc. will help them with baseball. One drawback of baseball is it does not involve a lot of running and therefore does not build stamina by itself. Basketball, football, soccer and swimming all build stamina.

2. If your child is 13 or older they need to lift weights. Working on skills without building muscles will not get them into the varsity lineup. A lot of kids don’t like lifting weights, so this is a challenge for parents. Most YMCA’s offer a reasonable membership and have a fitness instructor that can get your child started on a routine. Most high schools teams have off-season weightlifting/conditioning programs that your child can join as soon as they start high school.

3. If you think your child is going to play beyond Little League, one-on-one hitting lessons are a good idea. A proper baseball swing is very complex. A child can do everything wrong and still hit the ball early in their Little League careers. This leads to bad habits. If you can’t afford lessons, there are some good videos that teach you how to teach hitting. One hint. You can’t teach hitting by having your child only swing at a pitching machine or a pitched ball from the mound. Soft toss and/or short toss have to be part of the routine along with other drills that don’t even involve a baseball.

Valentine's Day

The MyRecordJournal forum discussion on Valentine’s Day shows there is no right way for couples to handle issues like gifts. Different approaches work for different couples. No one should ever feel like they have to do things the way others do them.

My wife and I, married almost 20 years with two teenagers, tend to save our money for trips and nights out and don't usually exchange expensive gifts. Last weekend we went away so costly Valentine gifts would throw off our budget. I bought her a charm for her bracelet ($40) and a card. In years past, I generally throw in a box of chocolates but for some reason this year I passed on her chocolates. (Oddly, as I was looking at candy I bought myself one of those large Hershey candy bars that should last a couple days and ate it all that night. This came right after I spent an hour and a half at the gym burning about 600 calories. This habit of exercising so I can eat is an issue for another blog.)

Back to Valentine’s Day. The one piece of advice I give younger men is to be careful of the “you don’t have to get me anything” line. The safe play is to at least get her something small - a card, candy or flowers. As Snakebite says on the forum: “No matter what women say, surprise them.” That’s excellent advice.
Happy Valentine’s Day.

Wallingford budget freeze

If you listen to the internet radio show I do each Sunday, you know I’ve been talking about a budget freeze in Wallingford for months. If you are a councilor or mayor hoping to be re-elected this fall, the reality is that you better show the voters that you did your best to freeze spending. I realize holding municipal spending at 2008-09 levels is an extremely difficult, if not impossible task. But if you strive for a budget freeze and arrive at a 1 to 2 percent increase, I think voters will understand. On the other hand if you don’t try for zero and end up at 3 or 4 percent, I don’t think voters will be forgiving. Let me know what you think?

My internet radio partner, John Sullivan, and I discussed the pros and cons of a spending freeze this past Sunday. If you want to listen to the show, log on to Http://SullivanOneOnOne.com and click ON-DEMAND AUDIO and choose the Zero Balance Budget.

Parking problems

My oldest son did take out the garbage last night. Regular readers may recall he did not take it out last week. I bailed him out, but vowed not to do it this week.
Although I did not have to take out the garbage, I did have to perform another chore when I arrived home from the YMCA at around 10 p.m. My wife’s van was parked in the driveway. Since she leaves first in the morning, I had to park my vehicle on the street, back her van out, get back into my vehicle and move it in. Then get out of my vehicle, walk to the street and pull the van in. It might not seem like a lot, but I do have a somewhat long driveway. On a freezing cold night every round trip (approximately 150 feet) is brutal. Widening the driveway is the ultimate solution, but I recently sided the house so that will not be possible for at least a couple of years. Parking on the street is not an option because it would block the newspaper box and I don’t think it is neighborly to park on the street overnight unless there is no room in the driveway.

In the meantime, I think my wife could save me a trip if she simply parked on the street and walked the 75 or so feet to the front door. When I arrive home I simply pull in the driveway, walk to the street and pull her car in behind me, saving a couple of round trips in the freezing cold.
As I moved cars around it occurred to me that my oldest will be driving this summer and I could be moving three cars around in subzero temperature next winter.

Should I try to establish some kind of household rule to straighten this out or just keep moving cars around most nights? Or Maybe you have another solution.

Meriden court closing? I don't think so.

Keep in mind that Gov. Rell can only PROPOSE closing Meriden Superior Court. Everything in her budget has to be voted on by a state legislature controlled by Democrats. All Meriden’s state representatives are Democrats. This group includes House Speaker Chris Donovan, arguably the second most powerful person in state government. I don’t think Donovan worked hard over many years to become speaker in order to support a Republican governor’s efforts to close the courthouse in his backyard.
I suspect this is an interesting political chess move. Rell keeps Donovan occupied fighting for Meriden Superior Court and in return some other proposal more palatable to Donovan and Democrats will be approved. That is my theory. What do you think?

School out early

We have had quite a few delayed openings and school cancellations this winter. Today we had our first or second early dismissal, depending on which town you live in. My children are teen-agers so getting out of school early is not such a big problem. Also, my wife and I work close by. Early dismissals must be a big problem for those who work out of town and can’t leave their job easily. Any horror stories? Tips on how to deal with early dismissal? Do bus drivers drop off elementary and middle school students when no one is home?